


Chariot Inverted

by Ember_Keelty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/pseuds/Ember_Keelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What PM finds in a dream bubble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chariot Inverted

            The void is expansive, dead, and empty, but it isn't the wasteland.  In the wasteland, PM was hungry, and every mouthful of food she managed to scavenge from half-buried ruins was a tiny victory.  She was fatigued to the point of near-constant pain.  On the worst days, each step across the burning sands would be an active struggle against limbs weighted down with exhaustion, but it was a struggle she always won.  In the void, she never has much reason to be aware of her body, and whenever her attention does shift to it, she's mostly just struck by how alien it seems to her.  When she focuses on her stomach she can feel that it is empty, but there's no pain there, no sensation at all except hollowness.  Movement is so effortless that she's sometimes overcome with panic that she isn't actually moving at all.  For long stretches of time she sees nothing she can measure her position against except for the writhing masses of tentacles and teeth she's learned better than to look at directly if she values what's left of her sanity.  With no sense of her own motion, all she can do is try to keep faith until she catches up to Jack again, or passes by one of those strange bubble-worlds or the border of a universe.  It's no warmer here than the desert at night, but the chill doesn't sting her face or stiffen her joints until they hurt too much for her to move.  Her new body accepts the cold into its flesh with all the indifference of a corpse.

            She is going to lose her mind again.  It's not a worry, it's a certainty, and it's the only thing that scares her anymore.  She's no longer afraid of Jack; all that's left for him to take from her is her life, and if she can't kill him, then there's no point in her being alive anyhow.  Besides, she _can_ kill him now.  More than that:  she has to.  She will.  Failure is not an option, so neither is doubt.  But doubt still creeps up on her when she tries to imagine what will happen after he's dead.  At the end of the wasteland, she drew her sword on the first strangers she met.  The void is less than a wasteland, and the Queen's ring is more than a sword.

            When Jack dives into one of the bubbles to hide from her, PM has a moment of something like relief at being able to follow him somewhere, anywhere but through the endless dark.  Maybe it's wrong for her to feel relieved when she's just lost sight of him, or maybe it's a good sign that she still can.  She quickly sets both those thoughts to the side and doesn't let them concern her, because she's not obligated to feel one way or another.  Her only obligation is to kill him.

            PM doesn't know what she's expecting, but it isn't what she finds.  She lands on the checkered ground of the Battlefield and looks up to see not the iridescent film she just broke through but a blue sky streaked with tendrils of red flame.  There are corpses of carapacian soldiers strewn about her feet.

            There are carapacian soldiers who aren't yet corpses.

            Feelings don't matter, PM reminds herself.  Killing Jack matters.  She won't let herself be distracted even by the discovery of people who are still alive, because only when he's dead can she have any hope they'll stay that way.

            "Excuse me," she calls to the nearest soldier.  He's facing away from her and doesn't turn at the sound of her voice, so she reaches out and taps his shoulder.  "Did you see him?  The Dersite who's prototyped like I am?  I need to know where he went, and you need to find somewhere to hide before he sees you."  He makes no move to acknowledge her, so she prods him a few more times, then grabs hold of him and spins him around.  His face looks normal enough, but his black eyes stare vacantly past her as though she weren't there.

            PM instantly lets go of him and backs away, then looks around at the other soldiers, hoping that whatever's wrong with this man might not be wrong with all of them.  Her glance falls upon a familiar Dersite in a purple-checkered coat standing at the top of a nearby hill, and for the first time in what seems like ages, she feels her heartbeat speed up.

            "WV!"  She calls out his name as she runs to him, because she can't stand waiting the seconds it will take to reach him to know if he's all right.  "WV, it's me!"

            "Oh, the Warweary Villein!" says a cheerful voice from somewhere up above and off to one side.  "I remember him!  You know the one from your session?"

            Before PM can turn to search for the speaker, the ground shifts beneath her feet.  She trips, but her wings catch the air to save her from falling.  They carry her the rest of the way up to the summit of what just a moment ago was only a small hill, but now must be one of the highest points on the Battlefield.

            At the peak is a forest of large wooden stakes driven into the ground, from which hang the garroted bodies of several dozen soldiers, both Dersites and Prospitians.  One post is set apart from the others, front and center, and a tattered red banner flutters above the Dersite bound to it.  His shell is covered in cracks and congealed blood — he must have been beaten severely before he was executed — but PM can still recognize him.

            "Oh dear," says the voice.  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that!  It's just that was the first time I saw him, and it left a bit of an impression!"  A maroon-winged creature robed in red lands beside her.  The garrotes vanish and the hill shrinks back to its original size.  All the bodies that lay on the ground before either disappear or stand up unharmed and proceed to mill about aimlessly.  "There!  All better."

            "It isn't," PM hears herself say.  She sees her hand shake as she reaches out to the nearest carapacian and grabs her by the face.  The soldier doesn't react even to that.  "This isn't 'all better.'  It isn't all right at all!"  She throws the eerie, lifeless puppet to the ground, then draws her sword and cuts a swathe through all of the others within her reach.  They don't scream or bleed, only flicker out of existence.  None of the remaining apparitions bother to run, so it's the easiest thing in the world to charge forward and tear through them as well.  Only once she's cleared away all of them she can see does she pause to reflect on where she is and what this tantrum must look like.  Then, she tosses her sword down and laughs brokenly.  "They weren't real people, though," she tells the winged creature.

            "No, they weren't," she assures her.  She could be a human.  She has hair just like the Witch's.  Her skin is gray instead of brown, but when PM thinks about it, she vaguely recalls seeing pictures of the Knight and Seer and noticing that they were a different color as well.  The only things off are the horns and wings, but maybe humans grow those as they mature.  "It's okay to break things when you're upset!  I know from personal experience that it can be quite cathartic!"

            "Things," PM repeats.  "They were just things."

            "To be honest, they were barely substantial enough even to qualify as that!  More accurately, they were memories."

            Oh, no.  "Memories?"  All of the strange things the alien girl has said up to now start to click together in PM's mind.  Oh no, no, _no._ That _can't_ be true.  It doesn't even make any sense.  "Whose?  From when?"

            "Yours and mine, and those of whoever else is nearby.  As for 'when,' it's hard to say!  You and I remember completely different Incipispheres, so there's no single linear timeline on which our memories occupy positions relative to each other."

            "There are different Incipispheres?"  It shouldn't surprise her.  She's seen with her own eyes just how vast Paradox Space truly is.  "But they have the same people in them?"

            "Yes, that's correct!"  The girl's already enormous grin widens even more.  "You catch on quickly to some quite complicated concepts!  I'm honestly impressed!"

            "And... what I just saw.  That happened in one of them?"

            "To the best of my knowledge, it happens in most of them!  The rebellion on the Battlefield is never completely successful, and usually it is crushed utterly and its leader made an example of."

            She never even knew that WV led a rebellion.  She hardly knows anything about him at all.  She met him once, for less than a full day.  He's practically a stranger, but she can't bring herself to think of him as one, not when it was his kindness that brought her back to herself after what the wasteland did to her mind.  She wants desperately for him to be safe, and the idea that he's suffered and died like that countless times fills her with a sense of helplessness that shouldn't be possible with the power of the Green Sun coursing through her.

            "Does Jack happen in most of them?" she wants to know.

            "Hm?  Oh, no, not at all!  At least, not the way I assume you mean.  As far as I know, the level of power he achieved in your session is completely unprecedented!"

            That's all she needs, she tells herself.  She has no way of knowing whether anything this girl says is true, but even if it is, what she's doing isn't pointless.  Without another word, she takes up her sword again, lifts off into the sky, sniffs around until she picks up Jack's trail, and plunges after it.

            The alien girl follows her on paper-thin and featherless wings.  "What are you doing?" PM asks her.

            "If you don't mind, I would enjoy talking to you some more!  I wish that I'd taken more of an interest in your people when I'd had the chance, but back when my group was playing the game, I wasn't in a state to be taking much of an interest in anything.  The Horrorterrors haven't deigned to bring you here when you die, and that might not be possible anyway since you don't have souls!"

            PM decides not to ask.  Nothing this girl's said so far has been helpful, and she doubts that's about to change now.  "I'm going to find Jack," she warns her.  "If you know who he is and how powerful he's become, then you know why you shouldn't be here."

            "You know, I think he came down here because he wanted a break.  You could probably stand to take one yourself!"  PM ignores her and keeps flying.  "I met your friend just recently, by the way!  He's doing quite well, considering.  The hole's all gone and everything!  If you wanted to stop and chat for a minute, I could tell you what he's been up to.  You could even leave a message with me to pass on to him in case I see him again before you do!"

            "I'm glad to know he's safe," PM says, but she doesn't, really.  She only has this stranger's word to go on, and she's said some awfully questionable things so far.  Even if it's true, though, it isn't worth stopping for.  He no longer needs her help, and she can't afford any more distractions.  "But I still have a job to do."

            "Are you sure you won't talk to me?"  For the first time since she showed up, the alien girl frowns.  "I did say earlier that it's all right to break things, but the truth is, I think you may have some unresolved issues you aren't dealing with!"

            "I have one unresolved issue, and I'm dealing with it," PM says.  The girl smiles again and laughs politely, but it isn't really a joke.

            "I apologize if I'm coming across as intrusive, but you have to understand that it's in my and everyone else's best interests to make sure someone with your capabilities is able to keep it together."

            PM brakes in her flight and rounds on the girl.  "I'm not like him!" she all but shouts.

            "Pardon?"

            "I will _never_ be like him!  After everything it's costing me to kill him, do you really think I'm just going to take his place afterward?"

            "No, of course not!  I didn't mean to suggest that at all!"  She looks so genuinely startled that PM mostly believes her, but even so the affronted words keep tumbling out of her mouth.

            "I would never, _ever_ hurt anyone who didn't deserve it."  Even as she says it, she thinks of AR, who would have died by her hand if WV hadn't stepped in.  Poor, sweet, brave AR, who broke what was left of her heart when he died anyway.  "I'm not a monster," she insists.

            "No, I think you're a very nice person," says the alien.  "I also think you may be slowly going crazy from exhaustion and loneliness, and I wish you would cut that out, because you probably deserve better!"

            PM falls silent, and quickly realizes that she just let herself get distracted again.  She has to stop doing that.  She does spare one minute to compose herself, because she can't afford to be this on edge when she goes to fight Jack.  He won't see any weakness from her.

            "Tell WV—" she begins after the minute has passed, but stops when she realizes that she has nothing of any importance to tell him.  It might not even be worth mentioning that she's alive when the odds are so low that she'll ever find him again anyhow.  "—whatever you think he needs to hear. I don't know anymore. It's been too long." With that, she turns and flies off.  This time, the winged alien decides not to follow her.

            Her mind is perfectly clear as she scans the Battlefield below.  If someone were to cut through her, she thinks she might just vanish into air.


End file.
